When the words stop, explaining at length only slows things down. Showing one short sentence on your phone screen is faster. Save these before you need them.
The numbers
- 112 — police emergencies: crime, theft, assault, stalking. Multilingual
- 119 — ambulance and fire, with emergency medical advice
- 1339 — night and weekend medical advice, multilingual
- 1330 — 24-hour tourist interpretation
- 1345 — immigration and residence, multilingual
How it works in practice
Police stations, emergency rooms, pharmacies, phone carriers and card companies each come with a fixed set of situations. Save a Korean-English sentence for each in your notes app and you can simply hold up the screen.
Pronunciation may fail; written Korean does not. That is why this beats opening a translation app — the sentence is already written.
Lost property
Check both 182 (police) and the Lost112 portal. Found items take time to be registered, so do not give up on the first day — look again the next.
Do this now
- Save 112, 119 and 1339 to your contacts
- Put three sentences that fit your situation — student, worker, short stay — in your notes app
- Keep your passport number and residence card number as text, not only as a photo. A photo is not searchable, and in a hurry you end up scrolling an album
Numbers that are not on this list
This list covers crime, accidents and lost property. Mental health and hospital interpretation run on different numbers and are written up separately. Different situation, different list.
The full set of situation-by-situation phrases is on the WeBring blog.